E-galley Review with Giveaway: Shopping for a Highlander’s Elopement (Shopping for a Highlander #3) by Julia Kent

I received this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Shopping for a Highlander's Elopement Series: Shopping for a Highlander #3
by Julia Kent
Published by Prosaic Publishing on June 10, 2025
Genres: Adult Romantic Comedy, Adult Sports Romance
Pages: 354
Source: the author
Format: E-galley
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Also in this series: Shopping for a Turkey , Shopping for a Highlander
Also by this author: Fluffy, Shopping for a Billionaire 1 , Shopping for a Billionaire 2, Shopping for a Billionaire 3, Shopping for a Billionaire 4, Feisty
My Rating:

Blurb:

I didn’t expect to fall for a Scottish footballer so annoyingly sunny you need shades to be around him.

I didn’t expect to say yes to his heart-felt, if loopy, proposal while he lay injured on the pitch, blathering on about banana pudding and sparkly unicorns.

What I definitely didn’t expect?

For our engagement to explode into a paparazzi circus, our mothers to turn into wedding bulldozers, and for our wedding protector’s perfectly reasonable elopement plan to spiral into a road trip escape.

So here we are.

In Love You, Maine, a town that celebrates Valentine’s Day every single day. We’re here to get married. Quietly. No drama. In disguise.

Although good luck hiding a 6’4” ginger Scottish striker wearing a knee brace and a perpetual extrovert smile.

Instead of being subtle and blending in? Our quiet escape is vibrating heart-shaped beds, mirrors on the ceilings, secret identities, interfering mothers, and one suspiciously enthusiastic moose that humps dumpsters.

This was supposed to be a simple wedding. Just me and Hamish. No fuss.

But nothing about us has ever been simple with us.

Still, this is what love is, right? It’s chaos. It’s compromise. It’s crying in a wedding planner’s office, then kissing in a hot spring.

It’s choosing each other again and again, even when everything goes sideways.

No matter what comes next… this is our comeback story, in more ways than one.

And no – that’s not a euphemism. 🙂

Shopping for a Highlander’s Elopement is a romantic comedy that blends the worlds of four bestselling series by New York Times bestselling romantic comedy author Julia 

– Shopping for a Billionaire

– Shopping for a Highlander

– Whatever It Takes

– Love You, Maine

If you love sports romance, surprise proposals, grand gestures, chaotic weddings, Scottish footballers, golden retriever/black cat energy, and characters who love too hard, mess up spectacularly, and always find their way back to each other with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments (and lovingly-used scrunchies) along the way, then this is your book.

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Excerpt

Love isn’t a football game.

It’s a feeling.

A feeling that uses instinct as a tool.

I’m smarter than this. When everything felt off, I should have known that it was off for a reason.

“Jody,” I say softly, “I canna do this.”

“Of course you can. You just have the jitters. Amy’s a wonderful woman and–”

“I dinna mean the proposin’ part. That’s fine. I can do that. I mean doin’ it on the pitch.”

His turn to go green.

“You want to cancel the proposal?”

“Aye. Nae. No’ the proposin’. The doin’ it in public part. I love Amy wi’ all ma body and soul.” I frown. “She’d hate to hear me say it that way. Soul and body.” I wink at Jody. “But it’s really the other way around. Ma body knows more than ma mind.”

“I don’t need to hear every thought that pops into your head, Hamish.”

“I only tell ye the important ones.”

“Like not wanting the big spectacle we arranged for you?”

“I’m tellin’ ye now, aren’t I?”

“We have extra cameramen here for this. Your parents and siblings are in the crowd. Declan and Andrew McCormick are here. We doubled the security.”

“Is this about money? I can pay for all that.”

“It’s not–well, yes, some of it is about the money. But it’s more about publicity and planning. A lot of people put forth a huge effort to make today special for you and Amy.”

“And forty thousand of ma closest fans.”

He closes his eyes and sighs through his nose. “A better time to realize this would have been weeks ago. Not a huge US exhibition game.”

“Ma instincts told me then that this was right. Now ma gut says something else. It all feels off.”

“Your gut.”

I pat my flat stomach. “It’s gotten me this far in life. Good gut.”

He’s right. I know how much work all the coaches, teammates, stadium staff and administrators, sponsors–hell, even the car park attendants–have put into helping me today. I don’t have cold feet, and I love Amy to the moon and back, but something feels wrong.

As Amy says, hinky.

I can’t explain it. If I had words for it, I’d use them. It’s a feeling, and those don’t always line up nice and neat in words that make sense.

My Review

I wasn’t sure if I was going to get an early copy of this, but I did, and I did a little dance when it showed up in my email inbox! I adore these characters, this whole series really, and the fact that we get other characters from other series that I love by this author made it that much better! And of course my love of all things Scottish/Outlander, and I was texting my sister who lived in Scotland to ask about all the words and meanings as they talked about, such as chuff, because of the dog named Chuffy. And of course the fact that Hamish is from Glasgow, where my sister now lives with her Glaswegian boyfriend made it fun to read and ask her about things they said.

So this isn’t our first foray into Hamish and Amy’s romance/relationship. Which could be obvious from the title having the word elopement in it. We know these two are in love. But the things they are put through in this story from deciding to get married puts a huge strain on them. First is the disaster that is Hamish’s proposal at his exhibition game. Then there is the craziness that surrounds both the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom who each have exactly how and where they want the wedding all planned out, and there’s no way to combine it seeing as how the wheres are in two different countries. As mentioned in the blurb, there are cameos from other series by this authors. Series I’ve read all the books in, and series I still have a few to get through. But I knew the people and it was fun getting back into those worlds. I love when authors cross over in their worlds like this!

I also love how even when things get rough and there are events or things people say that could totally come between Hamish and Amy, nothing changes their minds about wanting to be together. The drama doesn’t cause a riff between them. Most of the drama in this is hilarious in its own right, even when it is so frustrating to see the wedding plans just being hijacked and ruined left and right. But the love these two have for each other is exactly what they both need and neither will give it up, and neither will let the other not know exactly how they feel.

Now, because they are together already for the story, the amount of steam in this story is WAY up there. The only thing keeping it from a full 5 on that aspect for me was there wasn’t anything too crazy in what they did. But there is a lot of sex. And it is pretty much all on the page, no fading away, no closed doors.

And finally I just want to say that Hamish is one of my top book boyfriends. Yes, the fact that he’s Scottish plays into it, but more than that it is his sense of humor, his happiness, those are the things that I want in a significant other. There are a few bits in the story that make me think of some other romances I’ve read recently. One thing, the scrunchie, and a recent Helena Hunting story. I can’t remember the other part right now? But I adored this one. I’m so glad I got the opportunity to read it. All I need now is time to go back and fill in all the stories in the other series that I’ve missed to fill in all I need to know about these characters.

About the Author

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Julia Kent writes romantic comedy with an edge. Since 2013, she has sold more than 2 million books, with 4 New York Times bestsellers and more than 21 appearances on the USA Today bestseller list. Her books have been translated into French, German, and Italian, with more titles releasing in the future.

From billionaires to BBWs to new adult rock stars, Julia finds a sensual, goofy joy in every contemporary romance she writes. Unlike Shannon from Shopping for a Billionaire, she did not meet her husband after dropping her phone in a men’s room toilet (and he isn’t a billionaire she met in a romantic comedy).

She lives in New England with her husband and three children where she is the only person in the household with the gene required to change empty toilet paper rolls.

She loves to hear from her readers by email at julia@jkentauthor.com, on Twitter @jkentauthor, on Facebook at @jkentauthor, and on Instagram @jkentauthor. Visit her at http://jkentauthor.com

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